Behind the Scenes of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel | Hacker News Reader

Behind the Scenes of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel

rollingstone.com

125 pointsdanso59 comments

Two thousand firearms are illegally exported from the United States to Mexico per day, fueling the country's catastrophic conflict as much as the billions of dollars of demand created by the miserable failure that is drug prohibition. At dawn in a parking garage, an off-camera seller hands over a small arsenal of bubble-wrapped assault rifles and boxes of high-caliber military ammunition new from the factory. Thunder rolls and lightning flashes as the smuggler's car, laden with weapons, crosses the border with no questions asked, barely even rolling to a stop. "Drugs go up," Beriain says, "guns come down."

Who needs CIA conspiracy theories?

Lovely. He claims it's 2000 firearms per day, so more than 700000 per year. A 2013 article puts the number at around 250000[1]. Time for a war on firearms, maybe?

[1] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24...

>2000 firearms per day, so more than 700000 per year

Someone should tell them that firearms can be reloaded...

There's a large blackmarket in Mexico for firearms not all of these are going exclusively to cartels they sell them at 2-3x the price to whoever locally. Same in Canada, weapons smuggling is rampant because US truck drivers can stop off in a state that has no maximum buy limits and get a dozen handguns to sell at double the price once they cross the border.

Unless that truck driver is a resident of the state in question, no, they can't. Handguns can't be purchased unless you are a legal resident of the state. This applies to every state in the US.

Only in theory. Here in Florida, the traffic in undocumented firearms is huge. Websites for selling, flea markets, gun shows every month, etc. Most states are similar.

--NRA member

Perhaps the parent should have added a "legally" to his statement, but out of state handgun sales violate federal law unless they're done through a federally licensed firearms dealer.

Is the US even manufacturing non-military firearms at a rate sufficient for 2k/day to slip out through smuggling? That seems extraordinarily unlikely.

There are more guns in the US than residents. 2k/day is peanuts.

...except these are going to a very small group of people? And very likely not collectors or hunters.

in texas you can go on armslist.com and buy guns from individuals in a face to face sale. The only paper trail is your contact through armslist. no doubt they are taking advantage of this as well as having mules to legally buy the firearms.

The number of background checks should roughly track non-military firearm sales. There were 2.4m of those in March 2017 per the FBI [1]. (No, this doesn't speak directly to your question about manufacturing levels, but this does roughly track how many firearms are available for transfer.)

So yeah, there are more than enough guns in America to support this level of smuggling.

1 - https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_mo...

Beretta, who currently supplies the standard issue M9A1 handgun for the US Marine Corps, considers their military sales to be approximately 2% of total gross, so they're definitely doing more in civilian sales than military.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

The solution is clear, de-escalate the war on drugs, reform sentencing guidelines, invest in treatment instead of interdiction.

Yet the incoming AG and his inner circle are intent on reversing the progress made to this end over the last decade or so, and instead want to take us back to the policies of the late 80s and 90s. We know where that got us. The private prison companies must be salivating over what's to come.

he private prison companies must be salivating over what's to come.

Indeed, we might say the new administration is like Christmas for them:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/under-mr-trump-pr...

With sugar plums dancing in their heads:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/05/trump-sets-priv...

I read this book a couple of years ago, highly recommend it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/El-Narco-Bloody-Mexican-Cartels/dp/...

The narco epidemic in Mexico is morbidly fascinating and thoroughly depressing as someone who's travelled to Mexico and loves the country and its people.

I just finished reading Dreamland which I also thought was good.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreamland-True-Americas-Opiate-Epid...

This book has more of a focus on American pharma industry but still has lots of interesting insider insights.

Also excellent:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28187234-wolf-boys

It's interesting why Canada has not suffered the same fate as Mexico? Could it have something to do with a Government that believes in the rule of law and a citizenry that respects that?

If I were to lay blame on anyone then I would have to lay it at the feet of the Mexican Government. There corruption has no boundaries. They bleed the Nation of not only it's wealth but it's future.

It's easy to play the victim and blame everyone else for your problems. Mexico has to take a hard look at it's system and find someone who is willing to deal with the corruption.

Well if you watched Narcos, cocaine had to transit from Columbia through Mexico. Seemed like every part of the feeding tube of drugs gets wrecked by it.

Mexico replaced Columbia

Hate to do this, but since it's a common mistake also repeated in the reply, it's Colombia.

The amount of money at play is enough to corrupt anyone. IF you are working 40-50 hours a week for $80. And some one offers you $500 to just look the other way stating they don't want any trouble here, they don't even want to stop here, this is all going north, but with a clear hint there will be trouble here what are you going to do? Perhaps your kids are ill, need new clothes...

Or perhaps your kids will suddenly get "ill" if you don't comply. Carrot and stick you know.

In Mexico it's plato o plomo... silver or lead.

actually its attributed to pablo escobar, and he was from columbia.

I would imagine it is because Canada was largely worthless (compared to the all of our southern neighbours) until the 20th century. In order to make money off of Canada long term infrastructure and colonial operations were necessary which meant the need for a strong government, compared to Mexico and much of South America which were much easier to plunder by their colonial overloads without as much investment.

Canada actually has a lot of organized crime (Sicilian & Calabrian mafia groups as well as biker gangs like the Hells Angels), it just isn't reported on much in the States. Not all drugs flow through Mexico: Cocaine often moves across the Atlantic from South America directly to the port cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Hamilton. Interestingly enough a lot of that cocaine then flows south to the US from Canada to cities like New York and Detroit.

The US-Canada border is more than twice the size of the US-Mexico border, yet has only 1/10th the amount of Border Patrol agents.

Canada has very lax anti-organized crime laws compared to the US, which is why the mafia has been able to thrive up there. Google the Rizzuto crime family for more info.

It's almost like... if there's a market for something, people will find a way to satisfy that demand.

Forget CIA conspiracy theory. This is just fallout from US problems. Mainly de-industrialization, health care tied to employment, and the War on Drugs.

The war on drugs connection is obvious, but how does our shitty health care system play into this?

It's one of the causes of opiate addiction. Prescribing opiates is cheap, actual face time with doctors is expensive.

Yes, that's what I meant. Proscribe opiates => patient stops complaining. Cost is $20/mo instead of many $thousands.

I wonder where more emphasis would work: Greater searches of stuff coming into America, or greater searches going out? stop drugs, or stop guns, pick one. Which would make the most impact?

When I crossed the border from US to Mexico in a UK registered red camper van, there was no border from US to Mexico. I was meant to hand in some documents to show the van and family had left the US but we managed to get into Mexico without seeing any US customs / border. Speaking to the Mexican side they said the US border controls was about 2 miles back up the road so we didn't bother and just carried on South.

So probably a bit of room for some searches on the US side

>stop drugs, or stop guns, pick one. Which would make the most impact?

Legalizing drugs?

Here's episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9krnFldmkE

(Spanish with no subtitles)

It's a shame the video linked to is blocked.

Know of any way to find it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9krnFldmkE

Thanks!

This article fails to talk about the cause of the situation in Mexico, and that is American involvement:

http://fightthefuture.org/article/america-and-the-mexican-dr...

In the article they mention that the three most dangerous countries for reporters are Mexico, Syria and Iraq. Well no shit, those are the three nations the CIA/United States are systematically destroying for corporate greed, or do you really believe Assad on the eve of peace negotiations when everything is going his way would bomb his own people. That's insanity.

Minus CIA part, it says that at the end of the article. Both in terms of gun and drug trades.

>>or do you really believe Assad on the eve of peace negotiations when everything is going his way would bomb his own people

Its going his way because he bombed his own people. Although for a full disclosure they are different ethnicity. Saddam Hussein did similar things.

Well it's a question of framing. If America is in fact world's police man who protect the rights and freedom of all citizens of the world then America routinely bombs its own Arab citizens and destroys millions of lives to protect their rights.

Even from that perspective the US still doesn't use chemical weapons on people.

The only use of weapons of mass destruction by the US was in WWII, and nukes weren't consider off limits yet. Since then we helped to get them banned in as many places as possible, and in general find them too indiscriminate.

Just like the world community agreed chemicals were a bad idea after WWI. Countries using the WMDs use them once in one war and found them so reprehensible that everyone gets together afterward and an agrees that these are too much even in war against hated enemies.

Anyone using any WMD after the hard lessons about them have already been learned is so evil that it is trivially easy to get many armed nations, even those with only the loosest ties, to attack them.

Consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weapons_of_mass_destru...

>Even from that perspective the US still doesn't use chemical weapons on people.

No, just atomic bombs, agent orange, napalms, drones, depleted uranium, and diseases...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment

Again framing:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/14/the-united-states-used-d...

I'm calling bullshit on your train of thought. Frame ain't reality, buddy. The magnitude of Assads participation in first inspiring chaos in Iraq, then purging the Syrian people, and an increasingly brutal hold to power, far out weight any minor US involvement.

We were talking about using WMDs. When I in fact showed that WMDs were used in the same country by perhaps your country you changed the target to Assad. Well okay, again framing:

> The magnitude of Assads participation in first inspiring chaos in Iraq,

The Iraq war would qualify as the BIGGEST factor in inspiring chaos in Iraq.

> then purging the Syrian people, and an increasingly brutal hold to power, far out weight any minor US involvement.

Assad is trying to hold on to legitimate power where the US is attempt to purge Syria of his government using terrorists relabeled freedom fighters who have destabilized the entire country. This began as a small movement during Arab spring which was mainly due to food price problems which were out of Assad's control due to the global economy. The situation has totally deteriorated due to American intervention, as it always does. If America never supported the so-called freedom fights, significant human life and livelihood would've been spared.

In the end I don't believe any one in the situation is a good guy. They're all scumbags playing realpolitik.

> Assad is trying to hold on to legitimate power where the US is attempt to purge Syria of his government using terrorists relabeled freedom fighters who have destabilized the entire country.

I think you are widely overestimating both the US involvement and its degree of control over the actors it has links to. I'd be surprised if the main sponsors of the various anti-Assad factions (Saudi Arabia and Qatar) had anything like firm control of the factions they are funding.

I think you don't understand just what America does in the world. Look up MKUltra, Bay of Pigs, the 73 Coupe in Chile, School of the Americas, Iranian-Contras, the BP/US/UK overthrow of Iran .. I mean the list is seriously as long as you want to make it.

The CIA created ISIS. The Congresswoman from Hawaii, who has visited Syria, even says as much:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qdf2WH4g9k

I am not naive about what the US has done and still does. But reading a "list" is not nearly enough. Studying the US support to anti-Soviet forces will tell you much about how funding various insurgent groups goes, if the fact that US-trained forces have a disturbing tendency to sell their hardware to the highest bidder and have as yet to demonstrate any degree of success was not enough of a hint.

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